A Year Ago..

Monday, October 31, 2005

One year ago, near to 9pm, Darius, Yin, Good Jerk and Cindy were eating sushi at... at... I-Forgot-The-Name.

They were having the time of their lives drinking diet coke and stuffing sushi into their mouths.

Suddenly, Cindy's phone rang.

It was Val.


"Cindeeeeeeeeeeeee..." Val said.

Cindy thought she was laughing. While it SOUNDS like Val was laughing until she could not catch her breath.

"What?" I asked, while laughing back and wondering what was the joke.

No answer.

Took me a full five seconds to realise that she didn't answer me back immediately because she was crying. My brain is not exactly working when I'm eating at such a late hour with three buddies as companions.

She eventually, somehow, manage to tell me (actually more like I managed to UNDERSTAND that she tried to say) Guang Yuan was in hospial, and not only that, he was in the Intensive Care Unit, which meant something was reallly serious.

My first thought was that he got knocked by a car. That's cos less than two years ago, Jack (my cousin) just got knocked down. Jack's case was the most extreme case of bad luck that I had ever heard of.

Like, hello!? We're talking about Jack Ng! A guy whom I hardly remember crossing the road legally! As in standing at the traffic and waiting for the green man before crossing. He was always crossing in those 'lane-by-lane' method at busy main roads.

Yet when he got knocked down, it was, guess what; while he was humbly standing and waiting for the green man to appear.

I don't think he ever crossed by a traffic light again after he recovered.

That aside, we found out that Guang Yuan was down with cancer, so a whole lot of us rushed down to see him. He was warded in much earlier but no one told us about it until a godsis of his told Val when they met each other outside.

The whole scenario looked bad. Tubes and tubes and lots of monitor screens and all. Our friend lookedl ike he had lost alot of weight, and it's not like Guang Yuan had alot of weight to lose in the first place.

It was a period that constantly threw us back into thinking of those times we all spent together at secondary school.

And with that, let me show, once again, this stupid neocard of Guang Yuan, Kingston, me, and Val. Excuse me but this is the most presentable Bendemeerian photo that I could publish, so.. yea...:



Right, I know some of you are sick and tired of seeing this photo for like the 9999th time but HEY! SHUT UP AND READ OK?

Lol!

Fast forward from that very sad and challenging period to right now, 31st October 2005.

Firstly I need to apologise to everyone for not attending the dinner last night but the OT was tiring.

More specifically my backbone was aching from all that sitting on the floor.

Yes. Sit on floor. What!? You think an intern has it all easy? You are either frigging wrong or you were attached to a lousy company that doesn't trust interns enough to give you work to do.

In fact, these are roughly 30% of the papers that I had to file up (the other 70% being already filed and packed in boxes to ship to event venue).




Yes, that's the room that me and Recruit Kang (Joanna) share and slog our guts out.

I had worked to 9.30pm last night. Please remind me so that I can record in my timesheet. Like.. Hey!! I can claim OT! Can you?

LOL! Ok, enough, I know I'm touching on a sensitive issue here.

Anyway, here's an important announcement to ALL TP-IANS: Please be informed that timetable would be officially released on 4th November (I don't know what time and they didn't say). For TP seniors, please also be informed that fugging tutorials and lab lessons would start on the first week that we come back to school after attachment.

Sigh...

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 11:40 pm

You Take Care ar?

Sunday, October 30, 2005

With Kilo going to surgery and all, my parents were very flustered.

They were going to China. In fact, right now as I type, they ARE in China already. Shut up about the bird flu thing. I've heard enough about it already. I know, they know, and flu shots have already been taken, not like they are 100% effective anyway.

Dad called me awhile ago. Asking about the dog (when Kilo's not even back from the hospital). At the end of the whole conversation, which sounded more like a Q&A session, he ended it with a "zzz..zzz.. take care ar..zzz...zzz bye bye..zzz."

The "zzzz" sounds are due to bad reception so I didn't hear exactly what he said.

I was hoping it's a "You take care ar..." because I responded with a "You all also ar."

But upon putting down the phone receiver, I thought back and.. hey.. I think he said "Take care of him ar!"

'Him' meaning the dog.

.......

Ok, never mind. Unnecessary worries.

Since Cindy is a no-life person right now, except work work work work work most of the time, I thought I might just do a little bit of feature on Oscar.

Please please please tell me none of you forgot old Oscar darling, my terrapin....


(Don't worry, I won't repeat Oscar's washing machine encounter which I think I've mentioned three times throughout all my blog posts)

Once upon a time, Cindy's pal, Manfred, called her up. "You that day say to (input-someone's-name-here) that you're intending to buy a terrapin right?"

"Yup" I replied cheerfully. I had actually wanted to buy a terrapin for such an awful long time until I forgot about it. Thankfully I was reminded by him.

"I've one to give away. But it's not a baby. It's quite a big one and it's bullying the two babies I keep at home. You want?" he asked.

I happily accepted the offer. Like, hey, I saved its life! Otherwise it would have almost certainly ended up in one of the reservoirs in certain parts of Singapore

I eventually heard from him that the two grown-up babies that Oscar used to bully eventually ended up in some pond.

So we met each other at a bus-stop. Oh, Kilo went with me too. And he was such a good boy because throughout the whole turtle deal, he sat beside me quietly without even attempting to disturb the terrapin.

I remembered the first time I saw Oscar. As I peeked down into the plastic bag at it, Oscar looked up at me with those stupid blur eyes.

He has this habit of knowing you are looking at him, because he always looks back up at you, just like the day I found him in the washing machine.

Because I promised not to repeat that story again, for those of you who haven't heard about it or don't even know Oscar, you can view the significant blog post by clicking HERE!

Till today I'm still unable to confirm its sex, actually. Terrapins can only be differentiated when they are at least 5 years old. But I assume it's a guy because females are supposed to have awfully long claws for digging and laying eggs purpose.

So anyway, the photos I'm going to include photos of Oscar right now, having his meal right after suntanning his shell to keep moss and water-based bacteria away:

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 5:04 pm

Third post of the day

Saturday, October 29, 2005

I can't believe I blogged so much.

In fact there are many things I can't believe. One of which was how I keep on forgetting to blog about Kilo being warded.

Yes! My cute little giant baby!

Kilo has sores all over his body. That we all already know.

But this new one is vicious.

We all know he has this stupid 'commando' habit of crawling on the floor. Like when he comes back from walkies and you put his bowl of water 1 metre away from him, he would 'crawl' to the water bowl.

Apparently it was taking a toil on his chest.

Yes. And of all places it was this area of the chest that I like.

Ok, sound abit WRONG hor?

But you know how cartoons always feature baby Cupids? Blonde hair, blue eyes? Their hairdo always has this cute little curled up part at the front?

Yea, Kilo's chest also has that curled up area that looks super cute. In fact, it was the only PUPPY thing left about him after he grew so horribly huge.

So there. His rubbing had created an open wound on that cute part of the chest.

We applied medicine daily. Sprayed tea tree oil to keep the houseflies at bay. And we thought that was enough.

It wasn't. Commando Kilo decided to do his "I'm slithering like a snake" act.

Oh, wow, I'm typing this and his vet just called me to say the maggots were all removed. What coincidence.

Yes. Maggots got into the wound. It was disgusting. VERY visible maggots. The wound was big enough till you could put your finger in. In fact, Anna and Martha were catching out the maggots and burning them to death.





First time in my life I see Kilo crying

I don't know how they do that because I can only imagine how PAINFUL it is for the dog when you try to dig out the worms from the wound.

So we got him to Mount Pleasant, where within 2 seconds of seeing the wound, the vet said they'd clear the maggots first then decide to cut out the affected area and stitch it up, or let it heal by itself.

The problem? Kilo's commando-ing habit.

Obviously it wasn't going to help at all whichever option we chose because when we get home, the dog is going to continue to rub the same old wound (and create other new wounds in the process too).

Therefore begins the arduous task of finding a bed for Kilo.. which, believe me, is NOT easy due to his size.

I have seriously considered the option of getting him those floor matress that babies sleep on but parents complained something about mattress and gathering of bacteria making things worse.

There was this petshop along Serangoon that Xiang and I walked to, all the way from Kovan MRT (let me assure you that THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN).

Please be more aware of the differences between traveling on foot and car. If traveling distance on car from point A to point B is 40 seconds, on foot, please convert your seconds to minutes.

I'm not exactly sure how many blardy minutes we spent walking but we kept thinking we already walked past that particular pet shop because we had walked so much already. We kept thinking back to the times when my mother fetched us past that area and how fast we past by that petshop.

Finally when we found it and walked into the cool and refreshing air-conditioned shop, we realised we could not find the petshop assistant anywhere.

We automatically walked to the back of the shop when finally someone came out. Some dog, to be exact.

It was a Shih Tzu that even more resembles an ewok than Chubby himself.


An Ewok, from Star Wars. Image courtesy of mccom.net

I think that Shih Tzu's name was called Moji or something. And boy was it cute.

The pet shop assistant came out and apologised to us as she was grooming another dog at the back. Then came another regular customer and the assistant started chatting with her.

Xiang and I decided to look around ourselves. But not alone, of course. Moji followed us around. But no, Moji wasn't being possessive or fierce. It wasn't trying to bite us for touching the things in the shop. It was just trying to be friendly.

And I mean FRIENDLY friendly. Not trying-to-wank-on-your-leg that type of friendly.

We saw alot of dog beds and were pondering over the huge ones because even those don't really seem to be big enough for an adult Labrador.

So while we pulled out the bigger beds from the shelf, and left it on the floor while walking around and inspecting its size, Moji was there as well, right beside it, sniffing here and there as if he himself is also considering a new dog bed.

What a dog, I tell you!

Totally change my whole shopping experience. I was very humoured by it.

Shopping is a whole new different thing when you do it in a pet shop with dogs all around.

Then there was another dog that I would have loved to carry and pamper. It is an old dog. With cataracts in both its eyes. But the way it kept looking at me and jumping towards me while wagging its tail, SO CUTE I tell you.

It's a mixed breed though. It has a Shih Tzu face, a Jack Russel body and the colourings of a King Charles Spaniel. Some mixed breeds really make you go WOW!

Oh, and before I forgot, there was this other white Airedale terrier that KEPT FLAUNTING its newspaper squeaky toy, which Tinker has. The one that Ronnie (the Yorkshire we met at Sentosa) also has and kept thinking Tinker's toy was his and kept taking it away.

So the Airedale was standing up on its hind legs, and biting the toy in its mouth, raising it high above its head the way people always wave the Singapore flags on National Day.

Finally, we came to another petshop called Rompin' Dogs, or something like that.

Where there was a baby Yorkshire (I think it is. Puppies sorta all look the same to me). After seeing how cute it is, I finally knew why so many people keep Yorkshires already. They were tricked by its adorable puppy form.








Along with a very beautiful Pomeranian that I would have named 'Princess' if it were mine.

Why Princess?









Well...Why not?

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 12:06 pm

Silly things that have happened recently

There were quite a few. I'd note down the ones that come to my mind right now at this unearthly hour.

Remember the very memorable story of Joanna and Melinda? Melinda went back to Hong Kong now that the event is over. Which means in the entire conference room, there is only me and Joanna.

Apparently she got food poisoning and did not turn up on Tuesday. I had fever that day too so I didn't turn up. From what I heard there was no one in the conference room so they switched off the lights and closed the door.

When we both turned up for work on Wednesday, everyone was saying things like "Where did you two go yesterday?" and "Wa! You two yesterday close shop ar? Nobody in the room at all!"

It was quite noticeable since the conference room was near to the entrance and everyone had to walk past our room first before they get to their seats.

Despite being physically there for work on Wednesday, Joanna and I were like body without souls.

Thanks to our medicines!!! Should have read the darn warning: Causes Drowsiness

It got to the point of me tripping over and almost falling down. And what did I trip over? MY OWN FRIGGING LEG!

Yes! I kicked my own leg and I almost fell down. Either that or I would be kicking the pile of documents on the floor.

And Joanna was like picking up phone-calls at 9am and automatically saying "Good Afternoon!" until one of the phone-call was actually her supervisor who then corrected her.

At least she could stop her medication once her stomach was feeling better. Me? When I bought choc chip cookies today at Spinelli, I frigging tried to pay the girl TWICE!

She gave me the change, I took it, and then I took money out of my wallet again to pay again. She was like so SHOCKED you know! By the way, she is the one who looks like Sau Mun.

Oh, and by the way, I'm with a new husband right now.

You can now call me Mrs Oh. But honestly, just call me Cindy. I'm not used to my new title yet.

Yes, 'Oh' is my hubby's surname. His full name is Ric Oh.

What? You want to know who is Ric Oh?

This is RicOh.

























Right, 'he' is a printer. Recently acquired by the office.

I've already 'divorced' with the Canon printer. It was a *cough cough* good partnership while it lasted and I wish it good luck with its future endeavours.

Now, embrace my new spouse, Ric Oh!

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 2:02 am

The Long Name Event...

An extremely long post that resulted from not blogging for four days.

Am so sorry especially to those who check back often (I know some of you do).

A few photos that I have to upload regarding the IT&CMA CTW.. By the way, do you know what was my first reaction when I hear about the event?

"Wow! What a frigging long name! Even when they shorten it to only alphabets!!"...

Like.. Hello!! IT&CMA and CTW stands for.. *takes a deep breathe*.. Incentive Travel & Conventions, Meetings Asia and Corporate Travel World.

Oh yea, add a 2005 to the back of that name.

It took me until the third day of work to even remember the event name. First two days the only name for it I can remember is CMA.. CMA.. CMA... something something CMA one...

Friendly colleagues who approached me to start off a conversation would casually ask me which event I'd be helping out with and I'd always say "the CMA one.." and they'd go "Ooooh.. you'd be doing the *INSERT FULL NAME OF EVENT HERE* har!!" And I would faster nod my head.

OK! Enough! Photos!!!

For nice photos of the event itself, please CLICK HERE!

And these are the BEHIND-THE-SCENES:



My colleagues

Firstly let me introduce the people who made it all bearable, the TTG Exhibition team. Unfortunately not all in the pic :( Oh well, make do with what I have. Anyway, featured, left to right is: Whey, Angie, Wendy and Siti.



Next to be recognised is (part of) the group of interns from their local university that helped us out with the entire event, including the invaluable service of TRANSLATING!












Of course it wasn't work work work work non-stop. We did try to go out and enjoy ourselves at the night events such as the one held at Hard Rock Hotel, Pattaya. We ended up spending almost AN HOUR in that tiny shop!







Ok... I don't know what to say about this photo. But anyway, yes, Hong Kong was there to promote themselves as a MICE venue. It was just about the most colourful thing there so we decided to take photos next to it.. or behind it, for my case.

Oh well, ok, a more decent photo:




Angie and I with the interns

You know, the weird thing was everyone of us kept thinking that the interns were the youngest there. As in, among the organising commitee bunch of people, the students were naturally the youngest.

I somehow forgot that I myself, am also a student. One of the interns casually asked me my age and when I told her, she seemed like so shocked. Man, do I look THAT old?

It was then discovered that every single Thai intern was at least over a year older than me.

From then on I walk around PEACH with my head downwards respectfully, haha!

On the last day before the event wraps up, no, or was it ON the last day itself, I didn't expect any one to shed tears or anything of that sort. Until some of my colleagues started mentioning that the previous event or something there was quite some crying during group photo-taking.




Well as you can see, no tears were spilt this round. Just very happy (but tired) faces

Sure we look cheerful and all, but remember that everyone's just smiling for the camera. Some of us were dead tired already. And yes, in events like IT&CMA, things DO go wrong, it's just a matter of how noticeable it is.

Last day, before we decide to go for supper, remember I said we popped by Travel Awards? Yes, Travel Awards.. the one where everyone dress so nicely but we didn't go cos none of us brought the appropriate clothings?

We decided to take pictures OUTSIDE the area instead! Haha!




Ok, now that I finally see this photo, wonder who took it. I thought the WHOLE background was suppose to be included as well!!



Only Angie and I were leaving as the rest had extended their stay to spend their entire weekend shopping there. The only bad thing about Pattaya was that the new airport was still in construction. So early the next morning immediately after breakfast, we set off straight for Bangkok.




Tired!! Tired!! Tired!!


Angie's going to kill me but.. in this photo you can really see both our eye wrinkles!!! (I can assure you that right now Angie's wrinkles have since disappeared)

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 12:56 am

Prawns..

Monday, October 24, 2005

*Cindy is in her repeat storytelling mood now*

I hate prawns. It all started in Alex's kitchen.

We were peeling prawns that faithful day. Suddenly, somehow, a prawn brain (ever since I've been told it's actually the stomach) landed on the back of my hand somewhere between my thumb and my index finger.

It was a raw prawn brain (or stomach!), bright orange in colour, and very squirmishy.

You know what's the worst thing? It was stuck. To my hand. Dead stuck.

I think I looked like a chicken flapping its wings when I tried to flap the stupid brain (or stomach) OFF of my hand.

And there she was, right next to me, my buddy, Ms. Valerie Li, instead of lending me a helping hand, she was far too busy laughing her head off.

Finally, amidst her laughter, she managed a sentence "don't move if not I can't take the brain off!"

Finally when the brain was removed.. from my hand.. I hate this stupid phobia of prawns.

Which, I must add, didn't last long.

Prawns are like one of the most delicious things to eat in the world. Put aside the fact that it's a dead thing, but I mean, the best part of eating prawn is looking at it and wondering whether or not it is fresh.

It's that silly split second thing when you put the prawn into your mouth and you're just about to crunch down on it to judge how fresh it really is.

But I also learnt that BIG PRAWNS doesn't mean FRESH PRAWNS.

When I came home from my short attachment to the event at Pattaya, I felt so loved. At the airport was Good Jerk with my parents (Ok, I don't know why but I so enjoy calling Xiang 'Good Jerk').

Walked out the sliding glass doors pushing my luggage on the trolley and the first thing he said was "you didn't eat!"...

It lasted three seconds but alot of memories came flooding into my brain.

The image of my colleagues and I eating at the VIP corner of the catering area.

I think I never ate so much before during a buffet.

Working hard really does make one super hungry.

Round 1, Round 2, Round 3...

I barely exceeded Round 1 with the buffets at home.

But there was this one particular time we ate that was particularly memorable.

I walked in with one of my colleague to use the toilet at the VIP catering area. "I smell prawn!!!" she exclaimed.

We looked around the array of food. Lo and behold! The biggest prawns I've ever seen in my whole entire life. It was curled up slightly and poked through with a satay stick. And boy did it take up almost the entire satay stick!

*droolz*

For the next one hour of work before dinner, I just could not concentrate. My mind kept wandering back to the prawn.

Talking about that VIP catering area ar.. it's the toilet that we, the organisers always use because it is open ONLY to us.

We named it the Ally Mcbeal toilet. It's a unisex toilet and the guy's latrine is weirdly located right next to the sink (of course at a certain angle where you don't get to see anything). Still it is quite embarrassing for the average Singaporean. The first time I saw I was like "Huh? What's this thing doing here?" So I walked back out to the toilet and double-checked the signage.

Talked about being obsessed with your job (a little small tiny weeny part of my duty included accompanying another colleague to ensure signages are all correct).

Oei! Back to prawns!

So I took a prawn, just to try. If I was confident I would have taken the entire tray. Thank goodness I didn't.

ONE BITE. That's it. No good.

No good is an understatement. It was horrid. At least the one I tasted was.

It was so UNfresh to the point of being.. How do you describe it. It kinda melts in your mouth like soup or something. I think it's even half rotten, haha!

Ok, nothing to laugh about since I WAS THE ONE who ate it.

....


Anyway, turned out that it was an isolated incident. After that, no matter whether it is the prawns floating around in the soup, or the fried prawns they have in the pasta, it was so fresh that it was close to perfectness.

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 9:58 pm

Boo Softoy!!!

There really IS a Boo softoy!!!

OMG!

And it is SO MUCH bigger than my talking Boo with FRIGGING REAL HAIR! Not REAL hair but real hair as in like Barbie that kinda hair.. you know..

EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee it's like SOOOOO CUTE LORRRRRRRRR..!

Ok, anyway, Boo wasn't the only cool thing in the shop.

Apparently, that shop (that Junwei intro-ed me to) is FULL of cool things.

Like the LOTR swords such as Sting, Glamdring, heck! Even old Gandalf's white staff too! And then for a few minutes Junwei and I were baffled when we could not recall the name of the place where Gandalf supposedly dropped down and died.

You know you obviously KNOW the name of that place yet you can't recall. I declare that as the most sickening feeling in the world.

I should have taken some photos at the shop, though I highly doubt they allow it... "Please uncle! I promise no flash!!" *gets chased out of the shop instead*..

I'm feeling pretty shitty now. This thing call flu. Thanks to a guy (ahem, Good Jerk, ahem!)who drank from my cup. In fact, looking back, we're going to celebrate our third year anniversary soon.

Three years together and we took less than 30 photos together. CAN ALL OF YOU FRIGGING BELIEVE IT!?

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 7:41 pm

Finally Saw the Bridge

Sunday, October 23, 2005

There's this bridge where local dramas usually film at. The very very nice one near the indoor stadium.

I only always see it on TV, but now I've finally stood on it (no time to walk across it yet).

Went to the Jumbo there for lunch with my parents, grandparents, bro, his gf and Xiang today. Of course Martha went to.






... Ok, right now I am on the verge of smashing my handphone against the floor because it refuses to connect to my bluetooth to send the photos to my computer.

ARRRRRRGHH!!!!!!




Excuse the fiery temper. Not feeling well.


Anyway *turns around and stamps on the stupid phone repeatedly*.. There, there you go. It should be working just fine now.

........


*SCREAMS!!!!*

Right! I want to take this chance to tell all of you.. if you can't contact me the next few days, it would be because my handphone was smashed.

DIE PHONE DIEEEEE!!!

Ok. I got the photos up.

Go me!










Anyway, after that, we all felt like puking cos we ate too much (aside for grandpa and my parnets, the rest of us didn't have dinner at all).

We decided to walk it off at the nearest place, Shop'N'Save of Kallang Leisure Park.

We are SUCH laggards, I tell you.

Imagine our amazement, when we drove to the opposite carpark, the building was no longer there:






Totally gone. Flattened. The building in the pic is the Kallang Theatre. In fact, the last time I went there was when I was in Secondary 4. That's almost three years ago! For the World Debates Compy finals, I remembered extremely well, because I think there was this absolutely cute.. um.. Norweigian guy? Barry, I think. In the champion team or something. I remembered alot of ELDDS girls from my secondary school who went and was acting so..... oh, never mind!

Let me provide a random declaration here:

I LOVE CHUBBY!!!!






I'm starting to think he's really TINY for a shih tzu?...

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:29 pm

Random Recommendations

Saturday, October 22, 2005

1. NIVEA facial cleansers ROCK! Though they come in such small containers, but just a tiny BIT is enough to lather onto your whole face, unlike those stupid big bottles of cleansers that you can fill your ENTIRE palm with yet is unable to spread all over your face. BLEARGH!

2. I still maintain the belief that certain (sanitary) pad companies have mostly GUYS working in them, which explains why they don't do their proper job of retaining SOMETHING properly. Two words: Whisper rocks!

3. Piercing of your tragus should be considered PROPERLY. Especially if you have 'loser' skin like mine that has infections so easily like it's free-of-charge (Oh wait, infections are REALLY free-of-charge).

Well, on Thursday night, being a spur-of-the-moment thing, I got my tragus pierced. That Thursday night we were all happy and all.






All went well, or so I thought, until exactly 24 hours later.

Xiang brought me home and I went to take a shower. Came out and lay down on the bed watching TV like a sleeping buddha while the Good Jerk was playing his favourite D2 at a corner.

Then I felt water trickling down my ear where I had pierced the tragus.

Nothing wrong with it. I had just finished bathing. And it was frequent that I got water in my ears after baths. But this was weird. I didn't wash my hair, so where did the water come from?

Sat up, put my little finger into my ear and looked.

Wow, blood!

Please let me remind you, if you're not sure if its blood, don't touch it because it is VERY DIFFICULT to wash blood when it gets stuck around the corners and under your fingernails.

Tissues, cotton buds, cotton wools, pillows and my handphone keypad were the victim of this bloody incident.

It was really weird that such a small puncture wound could bleed that much. But the most difficult thing was cleaning my ear.

Thank goodness Good Jerk was there. I guess I'm not wrong to say he's the one that had all the fun.

Like, duh! If you were with us last night, you would have thought we were two kids playing Doctor and Patient. Needless to say who's acting which role!

He was cleaning away the blood, acting like an expert and describing the situation to me (the humble patient) how it looks like etc etc. Then he would apply the aloe vera gel, settle back and say "Ok, you're gonna be okay".

Then he realised no, the blood didn't stop. So he used a spray bottle to squirt water into the ear again (thus cleaning away the aloe vera gel which he will GLADLY re-apply AGAIN!) and the cleaning process starts all over.

We must have spent 45 minutes like that until I had had enough of the nonsense and decided to take out the stud.

And when I decided that, where did my 'doctor' go?

He fled. Literally, to the other corner of my room sitting in front of the computer, not doing anything.

Slowly, I took out the stud which feels awfully weird, but surprisingly NOT painful. The bleeding eventually DID stop, or else I wouldn't be here typing about this right now.

So, girls and boys, think TWICE about piercing tragus. Go do your lobes for all I care.



Finally, when the bleeding is stopping

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 1:02 pm

Toilet View!!!

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Finally!!! I've always mentioned here and there that the window outside the office toilet has a very super duper nice view. Finally!!! I have taken a photo. Finally!!! All of you can get to see it.

Behold!








Sigh.... Nice right? No wonder Cindy likes to stand outside the toilet (ahem! Only during lunch time)!

Also, having just got my pay (which was a little miserable, judging that I had only worked a miserable 8 days when I handed up the first timesheet), I decided to splurge a little to pamper and reward myself.

Instead of a practical item such as another much-needed shoe or another not-as-much-needed bag, I decided to splurge on a stupid toy instead.

I won't spare all of you, my dear readers, of reading my stupid reasons of purchasing the item. Whatever love at first sight bull that actually seldom happen.

Speaking of which, my latest love at first sight item was this shirt that I bought for Xiang at Thailand. It shows three cows, each holding up a sign that reads: Eat.....Mor......Chikin.....

So cute. I decided to buy it 2 seconds after spotting the shirt.

Ok ok, I'm so far away from the topic.

So what did I buy during lunch to pamper myself. Val already knows cos she's first one I told. And right now, Val's reading this blog post and screaming "DAMNIT CINDY! YOU'RE DAMN NAGGY! CAN YOU JUST TELL THE REST?"

Yea. Okay.



I bought......




Boo.



Yes. Boo. A Boo doll to be exact. That comes with Mike Wazowski's favourite teddy bear aka his 'smelly pillow' (I think Mikey eventually gave it to Boo or something. Not sure, can't remember).





What? Don't you know Boo!? Well, I forgive you if you haven't watched the movie, Monster Inc.

She's that cutesy little girl that is not afraid of the biiig baaad monsters.

I bought this little doll of her, which in my opinion, is VERY hard to find. When Monster Inc was still showing in cinemas, I had wanted to get a Boo softoy. Nowhere in sight.

At first when I saw Boo behind the glass display, I thought it was just a decorative item. Who knows, when I got the box and all, I read it and realised she could talk too, if you press this little button on her tummy.

And she has this softoy with her. A one-eyed softoy that actually belongs to another monster in the movie. If you put that softoy near her belly, she starts giggling and laughing madly. It sounds so horribly cute that you'd laugh with her the first time you hear it. Well, at least everyone did so at dinner time just now.

Here's Boo:











Here's an UPCLOSE pic of Boo:






And why am I flooding this post with so many pictures?

Well, I'm taking millions of pictures of Boo, because I have a feeling that with my dogs around, I don't think she could last long. For example, Chubby has already officiall declared his hatred for Boo.

Especially when Boo talks, which is pretty loud and piercing. At least my gentle Chubby darling pushes the toy away with his paw.

I'm not sure how Kilo reacts to Boo yet. I didn't think I would be able to control him if he really reacts so I haven't tried it.

But Didi...

None of you could ever guess. . .



he tried to decapitate my Boo by biting her head and jerking backwards very suddenly.

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:30 pm

Talking On The Phone..

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

With Xiang...

Really can make one puke blood.


(Scene #1)

Cindy: "Everytime I see that I laugh."

Xiang: "Really?"

Cindy: (vexed tone) "You don't even know what I am seeing!"

Xiang: "Ok. What are you seeing?"

Cindy: "Forget it."


----------------


Today, I've been officially transferred. My time with IT&CMA & CTW 2005 is over *SobZ*. I honestly didn't know that's how the department works. Everyone is divided into subgroups temporarily to work on certain events. Once that event ends, the group splits and goes on to other upcoming events.

If I had known earlier, I would have asked the photographer to take a pic of the team that worked together at Pattaya. And that photo must be taken on the very first day that registrations starts, because everyone had to wear this loud screaming blue hawaiian shirt.

Right now, the next event I'm working on with a new team is the International Feng Shui Convention that would be held at Suntec City.

I think my grandfather would be extremely excited to hear about it. But I would also make sure that he understands the talks would be held in English, not Hokkien.

Most of you don't know but my grandfather sees fengshui too. He walks around with this rounded compass filled with tiny Chinese words and shifts the plates around the compass.

In fact, everyone in the family, irregardless of religon, has to have my ah gong approve of a house before they would buy it. Of course there were a few exceptions. . . OK I admit, I'm talking about this because I have totally nothing to write about.

As Sau Mun has gently reminded us, SIP would be ending soon. We are almost halfway thrrrrrough! Wooooot! Not that I want it to end that fast anyway. I'm starting to love my job.

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:22 pm

The Cruelty of Men

Monday, October 17, 2005

An Internet Article to share with all of you.



It sounded like something out of a horror movie - so unbelievably cruel it could only exist in fiction or in the minds of some heartless hoaxer. But as the report spread across the Internet in the last week or so, animal rights organizations began to receive anguished phone calls and e-mails. The story? On the French-controlled island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, live dogs have been reportedly impaled on large fish hooks and left overnight in the ocean as shark bait. One consistent detail of the story was that a puppy that had somehow managed to free itself from the fishing line, was found alive in a creek bed, the hook still embedded in its upper lip. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society posted horrific photographs on its Web site.

Like everyone who came across this story, I wanted it to not be true. I wanted to find out it was some horrible, vile prank. Unfortunately, it is true. A Reunion newspaper, le Journal de l’Ile, reported on Sept. 30 that some amateur fishermen have been known to use dogs for shark fishing, sometimes employing the carcasses of stray animals found on the island. This summer, a man was charged with cruelty against animals after a live dog pierced with a hook was found near his home, according to the newspaper. The first person to be caught by authorities using this illegal fishing method, the man admitted he had used live dogs as bait several times, the report said. He could face up to two years in prison as well as 30,000 Euros in fines, according to the newspaper.

In response to inquiries about the story, a letter from the French Embassy states, “We too denounce the barbaric practices you refer to. Such acts are obviously illegal and will not be tolerated on French territory.” It is worth noting that similar acts were discovered and reported upon in 2003 on the island of Reunion, located east of Madagascar with a population of less than 800,000. The island’s newspaper notes that the practice is not used by professional fishermen.

It’s tempting, although futile, to ask what kind of human beings could even think of this barbarism, much less carry it out. What shut down inside them that they could immunize themselves to an animal’s pain and terror, and toss it into the water in the hopes that the suffering animal’s thrashing will attract sharks? Do these men go home at night and tuck their children into bed? Congratulate themselves on a good day’s work? Do they consider themselves decent human beings who are living their lives as they were intended to live them? Do they go to church? Pray? Convince themselves that God is on their side?

Such questions are futile because for most of us to try to navigate the pathways of uncensored cruelty is truly to travel into the heart of darkness--and our own hearts rebel. Here is a better question: Who are we if we don’t send our outrage across continents and oceans and demand answers?

We’re all accountable in this life for what we do. The men committing these atrocities may have managed to live lives with no conscience, but too many others know that a life with no conscience is a worthless one. The sad truth about this world is that there seems to be no limit to the cruelty that some people are capable of. It’s up to the rest of us to pledge never to be silent and never to look the other way.

As horrific as this story is--even if it is only a few “ruthless individuals” as the French Embassy has said--it’s important to recognize that people have not been silent. A small island in the vast Indian Ocean has felt the wrath of people around the globe, and has had to provide answers and explanations.

In its letter, the French Embassy adds: “The French minister for agriculture and fisheries, Dominique Bussereau, is fully aware of the international media and public outcry regarding this issue, and has written to the French National Assembly to emphasize that several measures have been taken to strengthen already exiting laws. Veterinarians have been directed to immediately report any suspicious wounds to authorities …” They went on to say, “The authorities on the island are closely monitoring the situation … All suspicions of such acts will be investigated, and animal protection organizations that have any specific information on these matters are strongly encouraged to inform French police authorities.”

Any act of cruelty is a window into evil and shouldn’t be ignored. There are people in this world who have deadened their hearts, who without hesitating inflict unbearable pain and suffering on others, especially those who have no voice. It’s up to the rest of us to call on our own hearts, to remember that our voices are loud and our spirits are powerful weapons against barbarism. It might be the best way to create a more peaceful world--one life (human or animal) at a time.

Davis, the daughter of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, is a writer based in Los Angeles.
Adopted from MSNBC Newsweek
By Patti Davis

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 9:44 pm

Subtle Hints

Today's newspaper stated that China would be planning to send some female astronauts to space (where else can you send astronauts?).







I cannot think of a better time to put up this photo that Xiang had taken for me when we were shopping with my relatives at Carrefour yesterday.




Anyway, yes, in case you like the whole set up so much, you can have yours taken FOR FREE! at Carrefour, near the first floor cashier area of the hypermart.

Next, Cindy the Pro shall advise you regarding how to drop very subtle hints to get what you want.

Keyword here.. is subtle.

Living under the same roof as your parents, you should be ashamed of yourself if you are not familiar with their living habits.

Take, for example, my dad.

There are only a few places that he would pay attention to. However, due to physical issues, I have excluded fish tank areas.

Thus... Paste an image of what you want, everywhere that your victim frequents so as to ensure that visibility of the item is very .. well.. OBVIOUS.











The computer. His essential home companion (aside from the humans and dogs at home).

Of course contingency plans should be made just in case he decides not to play computer games that day.

What is second to the computer? The TV of course!









Then of course, everyone baths, and before they do, they will take clothes from their cupboard.











If they hang their home clothes in the toilet then not to worry... you can also always paste it in the EVERYDAY-CONFIRM-WILL-USE-AT-LEAST-ONCE.......... toilet bowl!!!














And of course, everyone goes to bed too...










After a few days of continuous exposure, proceed to ask victim something along the lines of "So.. have you heard of the new S350? It's reaching Singapore pretty soon..."

Success rate of obtaining the thing you want can be gaged from the reaction that follows thereafter.

I wish you good luck!

By the way, in actual truth, my dad is the one who did that to all of us.

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 4:07 pm

Missed Me?

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Sure you do! That's why you're reading this. Oh well, either that or you know I'm already back and back to blogging as soon as I was humanely conscious to type sense.

And boy do I have ALOT to blog about!! Let's hope you're patient enough (or free enough during SIP) to read it, haha!

Trying to squeeze 6 days into a blog entry is near to impossible. I shall, as usual, only state the most interesting/funny/stupid parts.

First of all, despite what everyone ALREADY knows about Pattaya, I must say it is still an undeniably beautiful place (despite its lack of shopping areas, and of course my lack of shopping time).

This photo, was taken from the beautiful glass lift of Royal Cliff Beach Hotel:






The lift that I was taking was affectionately named 'The Scenic Lift' by all in the exhibitions department. Of course there was another lift that had no view at all, but was full of mirrors instead. I guess it's a kind of safety reason that they provide mirrors in the lifts.

You know, to be able to see what on earth the person behind you is doing. But I think it's quite awkward because you sort of have trouble avoiding the eyes of the other strangers in the lift. You don't know where to look, so you stare at the floor until you reach your desired level and quickly scramble out.

On the lift of the photo in the scenic lift, you can see a building. That's Royal Cliff Grand. Within that area, there are 3 hotels and one exhibition hall (PEACH) altogether, 2 hotels of which is almost 90% full as everyone related to the exhibition was living there within the same compound from buyers to exhibitors to conference delegates, travel managers and contractors.





The photo is a bit misleading. There you read the words 'Royal Wing & Spa', but the building you see is actually the Beach Hotel, ranked third (and last) among the three hotels. Royal Cliff Grand is the second, and Royal Wing & Spa is the first.

Enough about the hotels. I didn't spend much time in the hotel anyway. The only reason I went to the hotel was to bathe and then go to sleep. When I wake up, I bathed again and was out to PEACH already.

In case you are wondering, PEACH stands for Pattaya Exhibition And Convention Hall, which I think is really neat because PEACH is such a cute name.





However, I've spent SO MUCH time in that building that despite it's beauty, I am a little scared of it. Probably only right now, but as time passes I'm sure I'd miss the place.

Thanks to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, I got to see Mickey and Minnie for the first time in my life. Imagine, the first time, in, of all places, Pattaya.












If there's one thing I'm really proud of, it's that I played a great role in the SMB (Sellers-Meet-Buyers) session. I was the one to type and print out all hundreds of signages of all the buyers' name, organisation and country.




But that also meant one thing. If there were ANY mistakes, it was my fault.

So there were. One of the Danish buyers complained to us that he wasn't from China, as it appeared on the signage. It was quickly amended using pen since the organiser's office was a thousand miles away and we didn't have time to run back to print it.







I was, fortunately or UNfortunately enough to be one of those assigned to oversee the SMB session, and I was there to witness all the different typing mistakes I had made to their names (even surnames!), countries or organisation names.

Thankfully, none of the buyers were offended by my mistakes since Pattaya had such a relaxing ambience, everyone was in no mood to be mad.

But you know one of the WORST mistakes I made?

It was to a German company.

I was walking past when a German man walked up to me with the yellow paper in his hand.

"Excuse me Miss? My company's name is printed wrongly."

I took the paper from him, drawing out my pen from my pocket, preparing to edit the mistake. "I'm so sorry about it, but we can only edit it using a normal pen as there is no time for us to reprint." I explained while my eyes scanned for the mistake.

"Where is the spelling mistake?" I asked him, very innocently.

"The first word. It's Merlino."

You know what was my typo? I typed his company name as MERLION Marketing.

.......

So embarassing right?

Yes.



but...








I couldn't stop laughing at my mistake. I told him admist my laughter "I'm SO VERY sorry. We're a Singapore company you see.." And it was HIS turn to be unable to stop laughing.





My colleagues heard about it when I showed them the paper after the whole SMB session. From then on, I was referred to as 'Merlion'.


And if you think that was bad...


I was doing the opening introduction for a conference workshop specially for Corporate Travel Managers.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, before we start, I would like to remind you to switch off your mobile phones or keep them in silent mode..."

SOON as I finished that sentence, my OWN phone rang. Clearly. Mp3 ringtone and all.

And of all places, the stupid phone was hanging by my neck on my lanyard, which was sickeningly near to the microphone. As a result, even those sitting right at the back heard it.

I've never been THAT lucky in buying Toto, so why now!!! I then realised it was my supervisor who called me. After the whole workshop ended, I went to find her but she told me she forgot why she called me already.

Of course there were a few other screw-ups that were quickly covered up and gotten over with professionally. Those were too chim to explain here. But all I can say is, once again, Murphy's Law demonstrated its powers of:
1) Anything can go wrong will go wrong.
2) Anything that cannot go wrong, WILL STILL go wrong.
3) All of the above.

Also, on the first day of the exhibition, all of us were supposed to wear blue hawaiian shirts. I'd have to admit many of us were reluctant. It was bright and loud. Which is what it was supposed to do anyway. We, the organisers have to set the pace for everyone else to follow since this year's theme is revolving around relaxation and sports.

Then, many clients started taking interest in our loud clothings, asking us where we bought them from and how nice they think it is, and were extremely disappointed when we told them it was all the way from Singapore. We felt like we were on cloud nine though.

There were also some notable late night functions that the exhibition department went to kaypo. It was optional for some of us. We could choose whether we want to turn up or not.

Firstly, there was a 3D event (Dinner, Dance, Drink) at Hard Rock Hotel, Pattaya.







One of our colleague was abit tired out from the days and days of events and running around, she had problems going around. Like she almost fell down cos she didn't see the few steps near the entrance of PEACH. And then she fell on all fours when she tried to get off the transportation that is going around Peach and the 3 hotels.

Needless to say, she almost fell a few times at Hard Rock too.

The location of Hard Rock was a little scary. There was so much water(big swimming pool) everywhere and very little 'land'. Whenever she walked by the pool, we actually discretely put our arms behind to pull her back should the situation call for it.

She did ALMOST fall though. She tripped over some of the legs of those chairs that they lay out around the pools for people to lie on and suntan. It's not totally her fault. I was sitting at that area and a good many people, probably almost 20, were kicking the legs of that chair and tripping.

Because all of us were seated around the area, I had a good view of what's going on.

This couple was walking past us, and one of them recognised my colleague "Hey! That's Charmayne!" he said to the lady and suddenly he went running past us with his arms flapping wildly like he's swimming breaststroke in the air. It was hilarious and I tried not to laugh because it's so rude. In case you don't know, he kicked the leg of the beach chair.

And my that colleague who had been falling down often? A client walked up to her to introduce themselves. As an act of courtesy, she stood up and walked towards them, halfway there, she tripped and went running towards them instead. "My, my! Don't be so excited to see me!" the lady client joked with her.

You might think it's weird. How those clients actually know all of us. Well, most of them don't. They can't recognise our faces. It's by the tag that we wear around our necks that they get to know our names.

"Oh! You're Cindy!!" One of them said to me after seeing my badge while I was handling registrations at the counter. "Hi!" I said and shook the hands of that person whose name I don't recognise though he gave me his namecard.

"I received emails from you before!" he said, and he took out a paper from his pocket showing an email that I had sent him. I was impressed and honoured. But I couldn't find a way to tell him that I had been sending the same email to a few hundred other conference delegates and travel managers.

I decided to act like I remember him well and replied with a "Enjoy yourself! See you around!" As the registration queue got more busy.

The final event that wrapped up everything was our Gala dinner. Most of the department people didn't go.






It was really grand and really pretty. But I didn't bring the appropriate clothes with me anyway, and the rest of the group similarly decided to give it a miss. It was weird when we turned up in our jeans and t-shirts and hung around for awhile with those decked out in their suits and fancy ballroom gowns.

Finally we went to eat Western/Jap supper instead at Royal Cliff Grand, all the while joking that we could charge it to our boss's hotel room at Grand. Of course we eventually DIDN'T! I still strongly have the intention of passing my SIP, thank you very much!

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 4:27 pm

No more battery..

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Oh, there are a few times I want to mention this. At the building where I work, there's a little Spinelli there.

I feel very close to the people who work there that I patronise the shop everyday (mainly for their not-too-sweet Hot Chocolate).

There's a girl who reminds me of my grandma, I don't know why but she's not that old, a quite an old uncle who reminds me of my grandfather, and some of the younger staff reminds me of Yohan, my ex-neighbour studying in Sacremento now (hope I get the darn spelling correct), and get this, this girl who looks super like Sau Mun, so much to the point of scariness.

I just thought I should mention this because when my attachment ends, that Spinelli is going to be one of the little things that I'm going to miss for sure.

Also, some of you may know that my gate at home opens up with this remote controller right?

Somehow it stopped working.

It was working fine when I went out in the morning but when I finally came home from work after OT, it just refused to 'light up' as it always did whenever you press the button to open the gate.

My deduction: When I threw it into the bag, something inside the bag must have pressed the buttons without releasing until it ran out of battery.

Ok. Fine.

When I finally walked the long way home from Serangoon MRT, I rang the doorbell.

... and waited.



And waited....







and waited....





Doorbell also spoil.

If I wasn't wearing skirt and heels, I would have thrown everything onto the floor and jump on it repeatedly to vent my frustration, ignoring what the rest of my neighbours would think of me.

Since I came to that, I gotta talk about my parents.

See, they're very into qigong these days. Not taichi, I mean qigong.

The weird thing is, after paying a thousand over dollars and attending the lessons etc, they were able to muster their inner strength.

According to their not-so-specific descriptions, it involves a ball of energy (that feels warm), moving about your body and 'stopping' at places where your body is not too good. Like say you always suffer from shoulder aches, and that is where the 'ball' will travel to.

Now, my parents have progressed from that move-a-ball stage to a more advanced stage. It makes your hands beat the area that is not feeling good (e.g. muscle aches etc).

So there you go, my parents, every night, sitting on their special cushion chairs in the balcony, beating themselves here and there.

You know why they go to the balcony?

Cos you have to concentrate when you are practicing, and their inconsiderate daughter is watching television in their bedroom.

Didi goes out to accompany them on their nightly qigong trainings too. According to Mum, the first few times, Didi was sleeping with his head on the cushion that they sit on.

And when my parents started moving, Didi sits right in front of them, asking them to scratch his head.

It happened up until my parents got to the 'beating themselves' part.

Why am I not surprised that Mum accidentally whacked Didi's head one day while practicing qigong. The bugger was sitting near, asking for her to scratch him. By the way, in case you're so poor at presuming, qigong is done with eyes closed.

From then on, Didi never sat THAT close to them when they are on the cushion already.

I told my parents also that being on the balcony, they are very visible to the occupants of the block opposite us. Our balcony is wide open and roof-less you see. And anyone could see clearly everything that is going on, so much, that one day they are going to think there are two loonies beating themselves that they will call the cops.

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 1:28 pm

Full House!

Friday, October 07, 2005

Ok, how embarrassing. Allow me to correct myself, Jack is officially 18 this year. Not 19 as I stated previously. Wa la la! Hurry, change the topic to make you all forget the mistake!!!!

This post will be moderately long as I won't be blogging for the next week (business trip to Thailand with the exhibition department. I.. am.. so.. excited.. *sigh*..)

I hate packing for trips, whether it is holiday or, for the first time in my life, a business trip. Chubby ALWAYS knows. And he's ALWAYS sad when he sees me with luggages and folding clothes to put inside.




"Jie jie, are you going off again? How many days this time?"




By the way... All, please catch that Korean drama called Full House if you have time. You can get it, full set, at a very cheap price of $39.90! It is cheap because I know another Korean drama (forget the title already) that costs a whooping $69.90.

And yes, I assure you that this Korean drama is good because of a few very important reasons:

1) No one died. No one. At all.

2) There are no EXTREMELY HATEFULLY evil/bad/scheming people in the show.

3) No one got down with any incurable or hard to cure diseases in the show. The worse, was flu.

4) It's funny. Most of the time.

5) There are no parts that would make you cry. Unless you laugh so much till you cried (which I did, many times)

But of course I know some of you VERY WELL. The more I like a certain show, the more you people stay AWAY from it (very good example would be LOTR). Hey, it's just a $39.90 recommendation ok? Plus, buy it home and you can watch it a few thousand times like what I'm doing right now.






"Bring me with you this time? I'd be good.. Promise!!"

......I don't know why I'm not looking forward to the trip.

A normal day's of work is making it more and more difficult for me to even blog everyday, in fact, I'm close to blogging once a week, IN CASE you didn't notice.

Now, they're taking me away from my darling computer for 6 whole days!!

Talking about hardware, I think I'm almost officially married to the printer in my office. I spend more time beside it than with my boyfriend!


Imagine attending my wedding dinner with this banner in the background saying:

"Welcome to the wedding of Canon & Cindy"

Yes. The printer's a Canon IR5000 I think. A multi-tasking machine. The entire office depends on it for not just photocopying but also direct printing (from their computer).

As it's cheaper to print ourselves, I was entrusted with the honourable full-of-paper-cuts task of printing out many documents. Within a span of 4 days, I counted and realised that I came into contact with a total of 3939 pieces of paper! Not only photocopying them but punching holes and stapling them.

One of the new things I learned was how to bind. In fact I love binding the papers so much I OT-ed till 10pm once just to bind everything. I am now seriously considering a future job with Ultra Supplies.. Oh wait a minute, they're no longer in our school!








"I'd even pack myself in if you like! You don't have to worry bout a thing!"

Oh well...

If there was one thing that made work easier, it was my colleagues and the interns that I befriended.

I remembered a period where I had absolutely nothing to do. I went around the entire department asking everyone if they had any jobs for me. I learnt that I shouldn't do that because the whole department thought I was so super free, they bombarded me with so much duties that I didn't have time to speak to anyone for 3 full working days.

Anyway, one of them, who deadly reminds me of Clara from Bendemeer Sec, kindly listed all the stuffs I had to do on a sheet of paper. She wrote everything neatly. And sometimes when she had completed the tasks, she walked over to my desk and helped me cancel it so I know I won't have to do it anymore.

All was fine throughout the day until..

"Cindy, where is the paper I wrote for you?" she asked.

"Somewhere out there." I said, with my head buried among the stacks of files and paperwork.

I then tried to look for it, with no avail.

"Cindy..." she said, as her hands clearly signaled her intentions of trying to strangle me.

"I'd find it! I'd find it!" I said...

And I did.



But that was a whole 3 hours later after I had finished everything and was looking for the paper to check what to do next.

High and low I searched. It's not anywhere. So there goes the last resort: The dust-bin.

I found it there, after looking through banana skins, crumpled papers and thrown away lunch packages.

It wasn't exactly in tip-top condition though, as you can tell, but I did try to smoothen the paper as best as I could.









In order to avoid confrontation, I decided to just drop my kind colleague an email to let her know that the paper was found and she could tell me what stuffs I could cancel off.

She didn't reply. She was so helpful that she personally walked over. I didn't see her coming or else I would have hidden the paper. What I heard was a "Where on earth did the paper ... How on.. You threw it away!?!?"




"Blogging blogging blogging.. that's all she knows! Doesn't even know I'm here!"


By the way, no, I'm not acting it out. The dog seriously has a habit of climbing into people's stuffs and sleeping in it/on it/inside it. I'm tired as well, and need to wake up early tomorrow.

My family's freaking out too, and all advised me to bring vitamins/stomachache/flu/cramp pills. Xiang offered to get those for me till I raised my eyebrows and repeated with more emphasis on the mentioning of CRAMP pills.



"Switch off the damn lights! I want to sleep already!"

Oh well, you heard the boss.

So folks, till next time :) Thanks for reading!

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 11:40 pm

Never Juggle...

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Had the first company meeting of my life.

Borrrring.

No visuals no nothing. Just words words words and talk talk talk.

Only the permanent staff understood truly what was being said since they were there since the beginning of planning for the event. I was trying to understand the magnitude of the whole exhibition. Simultaneous events taking place at two different locations, registrations going on, ushering taking place, transportation fetching guests in every few hours while talks and workshops being held too.

I absolutely have to hand it to one of my acting supervisor, Melinda. I would go mad if I was taking her job. She's a workaholic mother of a 18 month old baby and owner of a 'Caesar' dog, chartering to and fro from Singapore to Hong Kong (where her husband is based).

Mel is also the one who planned everyone's working schedule for Thailand. In fact, today's boring meeting was held to ensure that everyone knows what they're doing and have time to practically dash from one location to another. Everyday I have to be at the PEACH exhibition hall by 7.30am. I'm hoping they actually pay me OT for this since I work till late evenings almost everyday, lol!

There's this incident that I want to talk about.

I've got to know two good pals at my workplace. They're both interns. One is Bernie from TP Business (Tourism), and the other is Joanna from Ngee Ann Poly (I only state her school name cos I forgot which course she is from, but it's one of the business courses).

Anyway, Joanna sits in the same room as Mel and me, and she just joined us last week. Last week, Mel was away in HK so Joanna and her didn't meet till this Monday.

Joanna was using this pencil box that has our Thailand event's name printed on it. Everyone in the office has it too since that pencil box was like some sort of cheapskate mass production.

On beautiful Monday, Mel came into the office immediately after her plane touched down, with luggage and all (see, told you she's a workaholic). Walked in and introduced herself to Joanna, and that was when it all started. The misunderstanding, I mean.

"What are you working on?" Mel asked her. Mel slangs so it's sometimes hard to catch what she said.

"I'm from Ngee Ann Poly." Joanna replied.

"No, I mean what event are you working on?"

"Huh?"

"ATF." I hurriedly replied for her when I finally understood what Mel was trying to ask.

After that when I was walking back from the printer (I shall tell you more about the printer another day, but it was driving me nuts the past week), Joanna walked up to me and said "Oh sh*t! I need help!"

"What happened?" I asked.

She explained to me that Mel had taken her 'company' pencil box and asked "Is this mine?".. because Joanna didn't hear clearly, she said "Ya".. and then Mel took it.

And Joanna was walking around not knowing what to do without stationary, and not knowing how to ask for it back, we went to take more pens and stuffs from the stationary cupboard if not the poor girl can't do her work, lol! Did I forget to mention that we were also laughing away like a couple of hyenas as I found the whole situation pathetically HILARIOUS!

Joanna then decided to do her work at an empty table in the office area instead (think she didn't want to take the risk of her stationary being unintentionally kapo-ed again).

As I was typing away busily, I didn't notice that Mel went to the toilet, but Joanna did. She rushed in and said to me "Should I take it before she comes back?"

I laughed so hard I almost fell off the chair. "Take!! Take!!.. GO!" I said while laughing my head off. I think I almost died laughing as she took it and rushed out back to her work table outside.

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 8:57 pm

Dry Lense! Argh!

Monday, October 03, 2005

Yes. I'm gonna make me biiig glasses that won't hinder or restrict my sight when I look to the left and right..

I was so tired today that my contact lenses just kept drying up; a feeling that only fellow contact-lense-wearers would truly understand.

I'm tired, yes I am. In fact I'm going to bed once I finish this post. Seems like the rest of the world is too tired too to even acknowledge each other's existence.

Wow. The keyboard at home suddenly feels so soft and nice to type. But then again, typing fast is not a good thing. I had absolutely NO WORK to do and had to go around the whole department asking everyone if they had anything else to type.

Oops. Back to topic.

I want to use this post to send a birthday greeting to my dearest cousin Jack Ng who turns nineteen this year. 50 years down the road and you'd see him whacking me if I mention his true age. Kidding. Hey, you NEVER know...

Which also reminds me, I promised to post a picture of Cody's shell. In fact, luckily I took a picture of it because Cody ate it up soon. Right now, only abit of it is left, specifically the head and one miserable claw.




What had originally scared the hell out of me the first time Cody shed was I truly didn't expect the shell to be THAT intact. It's still attached and whole. I thought like it would be messy and drop abit here and there but apparently the only thing that drops abit here and there are the leftovers of suicide bombers.

*ahem*

Let's hope you're not reading this at work during lunch hour. If you are then hope I didn't spoil your appetite.

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:11 pm

Bored at work?

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Weekend time is really precious. Ordinarily I wouldn't squeeze so many activities into one day as its very stressful enough during weekdays already. I've spotted many strands of white hair sprouting like tao ge on my head.

I was also repeatedly reassured by Mr. Chen himself that every hour spent with him increases my blood pressure that I could feel the veins in my head on the verge of exploding. This also concidentally always happens when I'm having PMS so I can't really tell who's at fault.

But when I'm work, sometimes I'm filled to the neck with jobs after jobs after jobs. Docs after docs after docs, of mass printing, I would try to always make it an effort to push my hands against the keyboard, lean back against my seat, stretch, and enjoy the beautiful sea view.





Though it is a rather narrow view of the sea, looking at the boats going past reminds me that I shouldn't complain too much in the air-conditioned office, leastways I'm not stuck on a boat. (PS: The window outside the toilet provides quite a nice view of Fullerton Hotel roof. I really love the architecture! Though I think my colleagues find the three interns really creepy when we stand there and admire the hotel for most parts of our lunch break.)

Anyway, being on attachment, I wake up at 6 everyday and started the extremely good habit of reading the newspapers while having my breakfast. But now I ONLY read the comic strip of Life! section.

Don't you feel that the happenings that are making the headlines lately are so disastrously dramatic? I feel like I'm some civilian extra in a movie called Apocalypse or Judgement Day or End of The World












That's Nur and Janet seating there looking really bored while waiting for the guys to turn up at Parkway Parade (one group by SZ's car, one by public transport). It was quite frustrating and embarrassing because we had 12 people altogether and since Nur, Janet and I reached early, we had to do the dirty job of booking seats.

It was peak hour and I totally understood the dirty looks thrown at us when we told those people that the seats were taken but am really, really glad that none of the people turned murderous and tried to attack us.

After which I went to Xiang's place to wake him up and pay a visit to Fugtard (now known affectionately as Futard instead), the lobster that I bought for Xiang on his birthday (and he only collected it a month later).

Due to over-nutrition, the BLUE lobster was turning a very pretty pink:






Speaking of which, Cody just shed his shell an hour or so ago. Would show you all the pics in my next post (provided I remember to post it). Shedding shell is totally disgusting but I like it when it happens because it means my little lobster is GROWING.

Joshua came over the other day and told me that Cody is a dude, whereas Lex's huge lobster (that is now officially in his RIGHTFUL OWNER'S HOME, FINALLy!) is a female. For a few minutes, we pondered and entertained the idea of breeding our lobsters (when mine is big enough, or else it'd get eaten up instead), but then Joshua told us that it would result in an estimated 200 over offspring.

Even though it is considerably easy to take care of a lobster, anti-social Cindy does not have 200 over trustable friends to take care of one each. Idea was subsequently shelved.

It was also Hanyang's birthday last night.





Val with birthday boy

I think we are really lacking in activities here. Most of us DO NOT gather unless it's someone's birthday or a certain festival. We never seem to gather togetger based purely on account of our close ties and years of friendship. Bleargh!

Photo-taking time.

Some people don't smile at all (Xiang),

Some people don't cooperate by posing for the camera (Cho),

Some people attempt to do the disappearing act with head barely over table (Val),

Some people really DID the disappearing act (me),

Some people can't part with the cue even when taking photo (Lex),

Some people dont' change their pose at all in the two photos (Hy),

Ok, I can't find anything about Josephine to comment about.








Oh, and do you remember how the candles was always different for everyone's birthday? Well for Hy's it was short and fat candles. No, we're not hinting him anything. It was just the only type of candle left that we haven't used, and yes, we've ran out of ideas for the next person's birthday!



Cindy the Miser took the candles home after that to use for aromatherapy.





Whereas Val took home the 'Happy Birthday' sign. . . Alright, she actually didn't. She just fooled around with the sign AND my handphone camera.

Honestly it really looks like she's breathing out fire like some pissed off mother dragon whose baby got stolen (excuse me for that pathetic description, just watched The Lost World you see..)

CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 6:47 pm